Do you think that the personal claims in the wildness should really be 100% safe?

Absolutely not, nothing other than the capital should be 100% protected!

102

45%

I support Bobik’s vision about 100% protected personal claims.

45

20%

I think better balance has to be find, but I’m not supporter of making them easily removable as that will lead to griefing against solo players which LiF needs. They still need relatively good protection, just not 100% one.

In the latest AMA for the russian community Bobik confirmed his initial idea that private claims in the “wildness” will be 100% safe. It was open question till that point as he was explained many times in the past that this is not a good idea, but nevertheless it was confirmed yet again. The reactions inside the community were quite strong and I will be honest here - I’m yet to meet a bigger community that wouldn’t be against the idea. So that made me start this petition and try to rise some attention on the matter.

I will start with summarizing what Bobik’s vision is that was presented on that AMA. Private claims are supposed to be private - peace of the MMO land belonging to individual player. This personal claim when placed in the wildness will be 100% safe - you can not loot it, you can not destroy it - as long as you feed it, that’s your personal land.These private claims can also be placed on guild territory. There the guild leader can remove them or enemy of the host guild can remove them during JH.Bobik also explained that he hopes for players to settle up on guild lands and pay taxes in form of part of the coins they pay to support the private monument going to the host’s guild monument.

In theory that’s great, but here comes the contradiction - why would a solo player pick to settle on a guild claim where he can lose his belongings during war (enemy guild removing it during JH) when he can be 100% safe on no man's land?

Bobik also explained that the territory outside of the guild’s realm claims does NOT belong to them - if they don’t cover a clay pit with their guild claim it’s not their clay. And they can remove personal claims inside their guild territory, so it shouldn’t cause problems. Yes claiming resources will be a thing, so each guild is supposed to send their own guild members early on to claim the points of interests around them before someone else does. I personally feel that claiming is fine, but where is the logic behind the fact that you can declare war and destroy a guild’s monument during a siege, but you can’t remove personal claim in the wildness? Let’s be fair - the only way to deal with them will be to create new guilds with part of your members and place guild monuments only to remove enemy personal claims around you and then disband the guild in order to create a new one to remove the other personal claim next to it and so on. Here of course comes the fact that you can’t place guild monument everywhere like for example near server border while you can place personal claim there.

Now I wish to present the other point of view shared among the bigger communities that form the hardcore core of LiF. They think that such 100% invincibility is borderline game breaking considering there are ingame mechanics to destroy guild claims. The simple argument is that those personal claims will be used for stuff they are not intended to be used for. I will present only few examples - everyone after 5 minutes consideration will come up with way more interesting ideas how to use that invincibility of personal claims. First of all why not use it as bank? There will be many same looking claims with house, walls and some stuff inside, you won’t know where some guild might be hiding their most valuable stuff and you can’t go placing guild monuments on each private claim to remove it. And why wouldn’t a guild store stuff inside 100% protected area instead of their castle that can be looted during war?Then what about sieges? You can place personal claims near your enemies and keep preparing fortifications and store ammunition + gear for the upcoming siege - and there is nothing the defenders can do about it.Claiming world resources for personal use without the ability for someone else to destroy that private claim and take over the resource spot instead is also wrong.Griefing is of course one of the main uses such system will be popular for. Let’s say there is landbridge made by the players over some river as we already see happening during the CBT - now imagine someone placing personal claim on it and building a wall there. Congratulations - new bridge is needed as that wall blocking the current one can’t be destroyed.Not mentioning the usual practice to place personal claims near the enemy, build a house and have a toon logged out there to log in and harass enemy farmers when they feel like raiding instead of traveling from your own castle. Building outpost is not viable as that will lead to instanced battles, siege and possibly the destruction of the outpost while scattered around personal claims with houses can’t be countered.

Now after explaining both points of view I ask everyone to submit their opinions on the matter. If the majority of the players are indeed against such idea as it sounds from discord and the big communities we strongly hope that you devs will take the results under serious consideration and maybe rethink your plans and propose official voting with other possibilities in order to find the right balance between some protection for solo players and all the unintended uses part of which were explained above.

The whole personal claims reek of potential abusment.But making them a "unraidable" claim sounds beyond stupid...Thats like begging people to spam the personal claims all around the place as stock/drop spots or worse.

I remember Bobik says there will be some mecanics to remove personnal claim with a dark, long and noisy rituel. I'm guessing the idea is a rituel with noise, big smoke hight in the sky and a discouraging long action with maybe a price to pay in blood (a half bar of PV??) or endurance depleted to zero.Maybe add a dice roll with low chance to succeed the rituel.Or add only one removal try per 24h and it's should be fine.

So raiding a personnal claim should be based on luck and perseverance to succeed. "damn it i failed today X_X but i will be back"

Baal wrote:I remember Bobik says there will be some mecanics to remove personnal claim with a dark, long and noisy rituel. I'm guessing the idea is a rituel with noise, big smoke hight in the sky and a discouraging long action with maybe a price to pay in blood (a half bar of PV??) or endurance depleted to zero.Maybe add a dice roll with low chance to succed the rituel.Or add only one removal try per 24h and it's should be fine.

Yes, but during his last AMA he said that this ritual will work only on guild claims during JH. In the wildness they will be 100% safe. That's the core of the problem and the reason for this petition to exist

Last edited by Sharana on 23 Aug 2017, 23:42, edited 2 times in total.

So in the wilderness removing a claim should be hard based on luck, or maybe "strength of the claim" (i mean a well fed claim will be harder to remove) and should be protected for 24h once the first attempt failed.

Then the next time your reconnect you have a message informing you that your claim have bee assaulted by a bandit.

And why not some alignement's point penalty when you succeed to loot a claim ?

Yeah, I think there needs to be some mechanics to avoid this, because if they are safe in this manner they will surely be abused.

That said, I also think there needs to be some measure of safety or reason to protect those claims near them as trade partners for guilds. Currently that is just a non-thing. If, however, their production was important to the guilds it would be a much more likely symbiotic relationship.

I'm thinking that they should still be vulnerable to Peak hour PvP stuff. I personally think that this needs applied to many things, such as the ability to drop things whatsoever on a claim that you are not friendly, owner, or allied with.

Basically, if things can be abused they will be abused by people. It has been demonstrated time and time again. Thus why peak hour PvP events are great for things like claims (so you don't have the whole constantly having everything destroyed with people ragequitting left and right) and why having open world tuning (for those who want to raid and do PvP stuff outside those times) and trading enhancements/caravans (both for those who want to do that, and for targets for those open world raiders) are so important.

The idea of them being immune every other PvP event (JH for the personal claims) would be fine for me, or even having the player select two JH events a month as times the claim is vulnerable (every other weekend by default) seems reasonable. People do have things that they need/want to go do instead of babysitting a claim, and allowing them vacations is 100% reasonable.

The complete immunity, though? Forget guild claims, everyone will just roll around with a bunch of personal claims and set their guild members to have access. The game world will be covered in them.

Jairone wrote:The complete immunity, though? Forget guild claims, everyone will just roll around with a bunch of personal claims and set their guild members to have access. The game world will be covered in them.

Yea it's a point, i have seen "guild" like that in the southeastern islands who have no guild's claim but simply 5 personnal claim each protecting a hut and all the basics to craft almost all things. That's viable.

One major problem is that they are to cheap to maintain, and that they have no max size. And from when i dumped a few gold lumps in one, i dont even think there is a max support point cap. So my claim has support points for the next 180 IRL days or so...

Max size should be determined by your authority skill or something, and the cost to maintain it should be raised from what it is now, and even more once you increase the size of it.

Suppose that the area of effect of a Guild Monument was not a static area but a region or sphere of decreasing effect. The size of the area of effect would be determined by the Guild's Authority, i.e. a Guild with less authority would have a smaller area of effect. This is further ameliorated by the cost of maintaining the area.

Personal claims would be permitted within the area of effect of this sphere but would be subject to 'taxes' and 'fealty' paid to the Guild at rates, and in such currency, as set by the Guild. Establishing the 'claim' would still be free. Maintaining the claim would not be free.

As long as taxes are paid, attacking the claim would be subject to the same rules as attacking the Guild claim, and can be defended by the Guild if they so choose. Failure of a Guild to defend its taxpayers carries its own consequence, I need not describe it. Failure to pay taxes opens the claim to attack at any time, even, or most especially, by the Guild whose influence area the claim is in. If the claim is not in the area of influence of a Guild Monument, i.e. truly in the wilderness, then it would be protected, but the owner would still be subject to raiding, in other words, killed.

If a Guild moves into an area where existing private claims exist, the owners of said claim may sell, pay taxes, fight, or just abandon and move.

Under this method, a solo player need not join a guild, as long as they pay their taxes, they are in essence the medieval equivalent of a 'freeman', not a vassal. By simple extension, the same system provides for vassals such as knights, barons, and dukes; with the added bonus of being mostly historically correct. There is also no true 100 percent protected status, except from rogue actors.

Veteran of the Psychic Wars. A rugged individualist with a distrust of authority ... and a heavily armed spaceship.

I completely agree with Sharana. Personal claims outside of guild claims should be less safe than ON guild claims. That is the whole idea of building on a kingdom's land: in exchange for paying taxes you gain security.

IMO personal claims in the wild should be able to get disabled at ANY TIME in the same way as personal claims on guild claim can be during JH.

The solution for true solo players exists already. Place your personal claim in or near the capital, which is LiF's version of EVE's Hisec zone. If it isn't big enough, I would be completely fine with making the entire server 25 a safe zone for personal claims.

As it's been mentioned many times on this thread, I also disagree with having a personal claim being 100% protected. I think that personal claims need to be relatively easy to destroy/raid simply because it promotes players to join a guild/community rather than try and play solo.

Majority of us have been playing this game since it's initial release on Steam. Right from the beginning this game has always promoted teamwork. Even in Your Own, people banded together in small groups and that made the experience in the game unique because it projected what real medieval society was like.

By giving solo players the ability to become invincible to anyone and everything, you ruin the core mechanic of the game. The whole idea of Life is Feudal is that we're playing in a living breathing medieval world, and the history I was taught in school was that living by yourself in the middle ages was dangerous and often lead to death.

With that being said, I do think it should be an option to have a solo experience. And I think that it is already available but the developers have over looked it. I'm talking about us, the community itself. We're not toxic, we aren't playing this game like it's Rust and I'd be very surprised if the major EU Guilds and NA Guilds went around torching solo claims for fun if that was an option. The whole concept of this game is that you're stronger with numbers and because of that concept I think solo players would be offered terms, or would be taxed rather than destroyed and to be honest, that's completely fair.

If you choose to play solo, you accept the fact that you're not the biggest or the baddest and that you will possibly be extorted, or forced into subjugation, because that's simply how the medieval times work.

NOTE FOR DEVS: To you the developers, don't be discouraged when we disagree with your ideas, or concepts. You're very smart in the fist place for making a game so complex and compelling that has attracted a mature community with great people. But I think it's important that your realize we as the community, may know best.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I agree with the fact that this 100% safe system OFF the guild land claim demotes the Feudal System the game is trying to build and basically will take the tools us Guild Leaders have when trying to recruit.

I understand the need to try and keep people out in the wild somewhat safe but this LIF and no one is 100% not even large groups. What I see this doing is not being used by solo players out in the wild but rather by larger groups to keep stuff safe. I thought that the point of the starter city was meant for solo players to have a bit of a safe area.

I see this being a way to avoid having to make a guild claim and then having it be 100% safe. Which to me is a bit BS.

I don't want it to be 100% safe but willing to have some sort of modified system to help newer or solo players a bit. But needs to have limits.

I mean at this time in beta as personal claim owner and GL I cant even delete a personal claim which is also bs.

Items created within, stored or dropped on Guild land are tagged as guild objects.

When guild objects are brought onto a personal claim, that claim becomes a "vassal"/"satellite" guild claim - and is treated like a guild claim with regards to JH.

The associated guild is the guild of the personal claim owner; if no guild, then it's the guild of the last guild member to have carried the object; if no guild, then it's the guild where the item was manufactured

Once an item is guild-tagged, the tag cannot be removed. Using guild-tagged items tags products, whether it is a tool or consumed material.

The guild "vassal"/"satellite" state on a personal claim can be revoked by the personal claim owner, but only after all guild-tagged objects are removed.

There are few things that would cause me to rage quit, but invulnerable personal claims that anyone can drop that I can do nothing about, would be one of those things. Even if the maintenance cost was adjusted so that they had to be fed every few days would not be enough as players are not going to want to be logged in 24 hours a day just so they could kill someone trying to feed their personal claim.

Regardless, I should be able to control the resources around me - even if not on claimed land - by keeping those who want to setup there out through warfare.

Currently there is a 'protected zone' that prevents the dropping of a guild monument near another monument. There should be a 'protectorate' zone similar in size (or larger) that prevents any personal claims from being setup without approval from the nearby guild.

The nearby guild should be able to declare them a 'protectorate', meaning anyone who challenged them would have to face the guild in a single battle. If the protecting guild loses, then the attacker could then move against the personal claim to destroy it.

Claims outside any 'protectorate' area would be on their own for defense, though it would seem reasonable for someone who wants to remove them do have to do significant damage to the personal claim to remove it. Or to be willing to pay significant amounts of gold or equivalent to destroy it.

Something has to be done though. There are so many ways this could be abused that it would destroy the game. Even if later fixed the damage would be done and players would not return.

I too agree that 100% safe personal claims are inacceptable. The current poll with almost 100 votes shows over 90% agreement regarding that opinion.

Since the personal claims have been introduced into the MMO, I have seen one case of the intendet use as a safe haven for a hermit and about two dozen cases where personal claims were abused for another purpose.

Something that I've seen several times is this:A raiding party rides over a large distance to its intended target. At the border to the claim of the targeted guild a personal claim is created and the members of the raiding party are given access permission. The raiders drop their horses in bags on the guild claim, so that those horses are absolutely safe. When the raiders plunder the people in the targeted claim, they carry the loot to the personal claim and drop it there as well. Now, even if the defenders manage to beat the raiders back, it's impossible for them to get their stuff back. Raiders often don't have any or only very few points in willpower, while pve-characters have a lot of it. The personal claim allows raiders to kill overburdened pve-players, carry their stuff to the private claim and then engage in combat again without being overburdened from carrying the loot. If the raiders really want to piss off their victims, they carry containers, carts and even building logs outside of the claim into the private claim to make them unavailable for their owners.

Let me point out though, that even in Bobik's version personal claims are not 100% safe. A guild that is big enough can easily create a token guild with 10 of its members to put up a cheap level 1 monument near the personal claim to remove it. The majority of guilds however will struggle to do this because of lack of members or lack of additional characters. So as it is, personal claims are a mechanic that, when abused, hit small to mid-sized guilds the hardest, while big guilds, that have an advantage because of their size anyway, are almost unaffected.

My approach to somehow implement the personal claims the way Bobik intended is this: Personal claims need four ingame days to be created and four ingame days to be destroyed. The creator of the claim must interact with the personal monument during four different ingame days and only after the fourth time, the claim is created. During the construction, everyone can remove the building site. When someone wants to destroy the claim once it is finished, only 25% of the monuments durability can be damaged per ingame day. If at any time during these four days the creator of the claim manages to repair the claim, the durability is restored. That way, the shortest time it would take to create or raze a personal claim would be eight reallife hours plus a few minutes at the end of the first day and the start of the fourth day (4 reallife hours per ingame day).

That way people could no longer set up personal claims immediately and at a whim to use them for an unintended purpose. Furthermore it would enable not just large guilds but smaller once too to remove a private claim if they really, really want it to be gone.

You have almost convinced me ... almost.I'll consider some kind of opportunity to remove/damage private claim with SIGNIFICANT efforts of a large number of players in case if that private claim is used in a Guild vs Guild warfare.

Bobik wrote:You have almost convinced me ... almost.I'll consider some kind of opportunity to remove/damage private claim with SIGNIFICANT efforts of a large number of players in case if that private claim is used in a Guild vs Guild warfare.

You mean if the owner of the claim is enlist in a war ?But what if the owner in not guilded (on purpose), he can't be at war and can give permisions to any players... you know like friends in a war ?

Bobik wrote:You have almost convinced me ... almost.I'll consider some kind of opportunity to remove/damage private claim with SIGNIFICANT efforts of a large number of players in case if that private claim is used in a Guild vs Guild warfare.

they are already used actually... we didnt see real sieges so far - so we can only imagine how IMBA they really are.... anyways - they are already in use.

Also, I want to add something that everyone within our super hardcore core players community must understand in my opinion. Of course, it is just my opinion.

Back in early times of Darkfall release, there were a LOT of players. They were all different, but most of them were rather "casual" for a hardcore game as Darkfall was. They were looking for PvE, rather than PvP, preferred safe NPC cities to underdeveloped player owned cities that lacked walls and towers at early stages of games so it was dangerous and hard to live there. And so on and so forth.

Since alignment system was not working almost at all, those PvE players were slaughtered A LOT. PvP players were making ambushes even diving into safe zones or making suicide ganks JUST to kill just for fun, without even looting the corpses. Well, there was nothing much you could loot from a PvE player that is ganked 24/7.

Needless to say, that after few month there were significantly fewer players and after some time epic sieges of 300sh people turned into "epic" 15 vs 22 fights for some towns...

Simply because aggressive PvP "wolves" were not restricted and "ate" all the "sheep". And ended up that only those who have left were those packs of "wolves" turning MMO game into some kind of quake arena from the skill and "massiveness" perspective.

I've been there for a long time, I've witnessed all of it with my own eyes. I must confess that I was one of those "wolves". But the result was not fun neither for me nor for most of other "wolves". We wanted MMO, but not some "epic" 15 vs 23 fights.

And the funniest part, that almost all of that time, the aggressive "wolves" minority (yes, they were minor to the massive "carebears" population back in release times) were the most vocal and most aggressive during "Forumfall" battles. "Sheep" were not really vocal from the start, and those that were vocal were humiliated and mocked by "wolves". "Learn how to play, noob!", "Do you even PvP?" etc.

All that ended up with the fact, that the game died. Of course, there were dozens of other reasons why game was not that successful as it supposed to be, but that one was one of the main reasons in my opinion:"Wolves" were not restricted, "sheep" got slaughtered and silenced, eventually the have left the game, leaving the "wolves" minority to be only players, turning M(assive)MO into just MO.

And even I myself a PvPer and was a PvPer all my time, I do want to preserve "sheep" flock. Not just for the sake of more population=more profit, but also for the sake more population = more fun for BOTH "wolves" and "sheep". Even if "wolves" does not realize it.Actually, THAT is the TRUE reason why we have such a logo for our game - the symbiosis of peaceful/PvE/RP players (Sickle) with aggressive/PvP/political players (Sword).

And that is why I don't want to FORCE every living soul in our game to play PvP guild vs guild warfare type of the game. Where Private claims are observed ONLY from the perspective of GvG warfare.

Indeed, exploits are not good at all and current solution needs to be revised in order to eliminate such possible exploits. But I strongly object to any changes that make peaceful players more vulnerable and less safe, even if you ask me to.

When you implement something to protect the new player you also need to think how will the hardcore player use that for his advantage.Private Claims are being used to:

secure mines without upkeep or prejudice to the owner;

prepare sieges without upkeep or prejudice to the owner;

spam the map without reason without upkeep or prejudice to the owner;

forward harassing positions;

Hardcore/Veteran/Experienced players are using private claims more often than the new players or lone wolfs.

I'm sure you will figure out a way to follow a fair system that protects new players and lone wolfs without making it a tool to be abused by the experienced player.

My two cents:

Maybe NPCs might help into securing areas for the new players, just like Concord in E.V.E.

Or maybe make server 25 (and eventually other surrounding servers), into trust positions, where a player cannot deal damage to another but can build and interact with the world, thus creating some kind of 'High-Sec' just like in E.V.E.

I agree with you Bobik. The guild I'm in (Vinterskorn) realized something similar to that and have taken a more relaxed approach as to create a more inviting atmosphere for crafters to join us.

I'm sure that there is a system that can accomplish what you're aiming for while at the same time allowing the pvp / kingdom warfare.

I don't expect this to happen overnight and that it will take some trial and error. I think the most import thing is communication. As long as there is open communication with the PVP community and we're not just shut-down and our input rejected I think we can keep working towards a good compromise.

I would expect the pvp wolves here would agree that compared to role-players or brand new players, we are pretty much gods. A single one of our mid-tier pvp guys can literally wipe out a guild of 8 to 10 new players by themselves without too much trouble.

Because of this I think it should be obvious we should work with Bobik in some fashion to come up with a good compromise to keep the game populated.

I think I'm one of the few PvPers here that has literally "killed everyone on the MMO". There were 2 guys on... I found them and killed them back when the map showed where people were. After they were dead I was alone in the mmo. It felt very ominous. I don't want that to happen on a larger scale.

"Yes, Betrayer of Hope. They gave me the name to revile me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it." —Ishamael

Bobik,thank you very much for having a look at the topic and replying to us.

I honestly doubt anyone will disagree with what you just said (your motives behind such decision), yet that was not the core of the issue. Let's face it - so many of us have multiple chars already and will probably buy more in the future. Each big guilds already has few monuments they can place and share permissions to function as a single guild. If there is Bob and Joe who paid for big personal claims, and made themself small village by combining their claims they are not protected. One of those "free" monuments (as it requires only 10 characters, not accounts) can be used to take over that village and loot it/destroy it just for the lolz. That's griefing and that's allowed - that will be a situation where I will really feel sorry for the poor Bob and Joe that were griefed just for the lolz. This is possible and will happen in the currently planned mechanics.

The real problem starts when we (big communities) see those protected claims as weapons and come with creative ideas how to use them and how to protect from them. Isn't claiming resources for the lolz near your enemy in the beginning not griefing if they can't remove those personal claims? And everything else that was mentioned already. Guilds need to defend themself as well.

I honestly don't see easy solution. For example griefing solo players by placing fake guild monuments on their developed claims is still griefing that is allowed and if it's the only way to harass "RPers" there will be people who will do it sadly.

From such perspective do you think having server 25 (the entire server, not just the capital area) no PvP zone (damage disabled) and then the continental parts of 24, 26 and 18, 17, 18 disabled for guild monuments where only personal claims can be placed and they can't be revoked will work? That will be the safer area where PvP is possible, but no property destruction (can't place fake guild monuments to remove the personal claim) with server 25 completely safe (no PvP). Then rest of the world is wild west where personal claims can be removed by performing that ritual like 2 times a week (JH kind of) and if you want protection you will either live in the middle of no where (no one will bother) or deal with guilds to settle on their lands. They will be vulnerable only during war and most guild won't be at war all the time

Last edited by Sharana on 26 Aug 2017, 05:23, edited 6 times in total.

What if there was a "dead zone" around guild claims that you could not place personal claims in. However you can place personal claims INSIDE guild claims.

Then, if you place a personal claim inside a guild claim it works as normal. If you place a personal claim outside a guild claim in the "wild" it acts just like a tier 1 guild claim but on a smaller scale... let's call it a "Tier 0 claim".

You could then not place a tier 1 guild claim on top of a personal claims that are placed in the "wild".

Your options would be to use a new "personal guild claim battle totem" that would be cheaper than a "guild claim battle totem". You could place it on their personal claim and they would have 2 options... 2) fight in a small-scale siege battle and try to rally their friends to help defend their personal claim or 2) allow the enemy guild to place a guild monument on top of their personal claim.

You could then maybe prevent personal claims from placing "guild battle totems" but allow them to place "personal claim battle totems" so then you have personal claims able to go to fight each other.

Also, you could create a "newbie zone" around the main city where people could place 100% protected personal claims and just prevent guild claims from ever placing monuments there.

I can't think of a better compromise than this. Essentially, for the solo player that wishes to adventure into the wild... let them experience what the other guilds experience. Same risk / reward just on a smaller scale.

I could see solo players getting other local players to help defend or even hiring a merc guild to help defend. While the players that stay near the starting city have a much more peaceful existence. Essentially separate your solo players that want a peaceful life from the solo players that want to have some risky adventure but don't want to join a guild.

"Yes, Betrayer of Hope. They gave me the name to revile me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it." —Ishamael

Disable combat mode? Trolls will ram other players with their horse and kill them with the damage resulting from being tossed against an object or from falling down a slope. No one could stop these trolls because you can't kill them with weapons in the No-PVP-Zone.

Make all players invulnerable? Trolls will climb over walls and block doorways, thus maybe even imprison other players.

In the end there must be some GM's that can be contacted when someone exploits the prejudice no-pvp mechanic. But that's costly.

It may sound as another "wolf" speaking, however its weird for me to to accept that random "solo" player would have some godly protection against other people etc.

For me its what realm claims are for - to have farms and private claims on. It creates typical conditions that farms and other claims should be around main monument. This creates "city" like conditions.

Its only logical for lone player to struggle if found in wilds.So again it should be normal that lone players seek protectorate.

What i would suggest is to add function in standings on private claims that do not belong to guild and are claiming land outside guild realm claim. "Seek protectorate" i would like to call it to sent proposition to some minor or major guilds.

In short if private claim is without protectorate should have dark ritual available as well. (30 mins turning of private claim or something). Then raiders are able to loot and destroy. What should be normal is for the raiders to have some minor or major alignment loss and quite a long criminal status timer. Yes alignment loss - what are you expecting. That you are destroying some lone poor farmers life burning his farm and raping his wife and still have good alignment?

If private claim that is under guild protectorate should have similar thing(alignment loss, criminal status), but raiders would have message like - "this land is under protection of "this and this guild" you may risk their wrath". If raiders ignore warning, dark ritual starts and guild that is defending priv. claim should have notification that raiders are attacking one of their priv. claims.

Another idea would be to add option to "seek protectorate under the crown". Basically it ability to build claim around main city and make THOSE claims 100% untouchable.

I love the battles, glory and loot.Yet I'm not the wolf.I love the craft, trade and gold.Yet I'm not the sheep.What am I then you ask?...I'm The Jackal...